INDY WAY: Iman Shumpert is fouled by the Pacers’ Paul George as George Hill looks on during the Knicks’ 102-88 victory last night in Indianapolis. Photo: EPA

INDIANAPOLIS — You don’t have to like the culture of entitlement that pervades the NBA, or endorse the notion that it’s a players’ league and, more to the point, a star’s league. Like it? That’s probably one of the things you detest about the NBA, about all professional sports.

It was Casey Stengel, in the 1930s, after he had been fired as the manager of the Dodgers, who was asked why he had been let go.

“Because it’s easier to fire one skipper than 20 sailors,” he said.

Especially when those sailors let it be known they no longer care to follow the skipper’s navigation skills. The Knicks sent that message to Mike D’Antoni loudly and clearly over most of the last calendar year, when they were alternately lackluster and lackadaisical and lacking in anything resembling consistency.

Some of them were blunt about it. Some of them were subtle. But during the six-game losing streak that nearly submarined the season, one thing was perfectly clear: They had stopped listening. They had stopped responding. They had checked out. Heap as much blame on Carmelo Anthony for this as you like, but he wasn’t the only one sizing up a lifeboat.

They were united in dispatching the former coach, even if none of them would characterize it that way. And they are united in making the new coach, Mike Woodson, look like a cross between Red Auerbach and Phil Jackson through three games on the job. Last night’s 102-88 crunching of the Pacers completed a two-game home-and-home mismatch, and was the third straight double-digit win for the new man.

And it underlined a basic truth that exists in the NBA:

You can conduct a mutiny. It has happened before.

But when you do, you had better prove, quickly, that it really was the coach’s fault.

Magic Johnson, after all, may have forced Paul Westhead to the gangplank 30 years ago, but the Lakers won the NBA championship five months later, and added three more titles under Pat Riley. How often is Magic referred to as a coach killer?

How about Jason Kidd? He earned a mountain of hosannas for leading the Nets on back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals, but in year three he grew disenchanted with Byron Scott’s approach and his work habits, conducted a one-man, one-game sit-down strike, then orchestrated a basketball impeachment.

The Nets promptly won 13 games in a row under Lawrence Frank.

And Kidd’s subterfuge became an asterisk on an otherwise brilliant resume, often in invisible ink.

So, yes: This is what the Knicks have before them now, after a back-to-back that was as impressive a 48 hours as they have enjoyed since last season. The Pacers’ reputation is that they are everything the Knicks are supposed to be but aren’t: dynamic, easy on the eyes, high-powered, unselfish. And these last two nights, they barely belonged in the same gym.

“We’re a little hungry,” Woodson said when it was over. “We got after it ugly, grinding and working hard.”

There are a number of things to like about what Woodson has done across his first 144 minutes in charge. The rotation makes sense for the first time all year. Woodson proved that while he may be most comfortable leaning on his stars, he isn’t married to them. The clinching fourth-quarter splurge took place with Amar’e Stoudemire on the bench and Carmelo Anthomy taking a tertiary role behind Jeremy Lin and J.R. Smith.

And Woodson took a man-sized verbal bite out of Landry Fields after Fields botched a defensive assignment, getting in the guard’s face and exiling him to the bench for the duration. Accountability apparently isn’t only a word to Woodson, but a credo.

“You play this game the right way,” Woodson had said, “it will reward you.”

You could say the same thing about the delicate game in which NBA players engage, where the difference between a coach making an impact and simply serving time is paper thin. It’s on these players now. They’re the ones who demanded a new coach, if not with their words, then with their actions. Whether or not they wanted D’Antoni gone, they played as if they did. And they got their wish.

Now, they play to prove they were right. And so far, it’s hard to argue.